As the time grew closer to reaching Mitch, I found I had more and more concerns. ‘We hadn’t been able to trace Mitch until now,’ I said to Sara, ‘but if she’d chosen to, I’m pretty sure that over the decades she could have found one of us. There has to be a reason why she hasn’t, doesn’t there?’
Sara nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking the same. Is she angry with us? Or just plain not interested? I’d envisaged the big happy reunion, but now I wonder if that’s going to happen.’
‘Maybe we’ve left it too late,’ I said. ‘One of us could have tried to find her before. I reckon we’re all as guilty as each other.’
‘Guess all we can do now is wait and see, though I must say I feel a certain trepidation.’
Part of the reason I wanted to go along with Sara was not just to watch the footage so far, but also because Katie Brookfield was coming in to watch with us. I’d been thinking a lot about how I wanted to live in my future, and the living situation Katie’d created with her Bonnet friends had appeal. I wanted to chat more to her about it.
‘I’m having the most marvellous time, Ally,’ said Katie when we met in her hotel in Kensington during a break, and Sara was off editing her to camera shots. ‘The crew are treating us like stars.’
‘Well you are a star,’ I said, ‘and after seeing how you live with your friends, I wanted to ask you a few things off camera.’
Katie looked at me affectionately and reached out and took my hand. ‘I wondered how you’d been coping since Michael passed. Is that why you want to ask?’
I nodded and felt tears well up. ‘Amazing how your life can change in a minute. All Michael and I built together just doesn’t work any more – the house, the lifestyle. I don’t like being there on my own. The house is too big just for one and, although I know it’s a contradiction, the silence is loud.’
‘What about your own Bonnets? I mean, your own close friends like mine? Sara? Jo?’ Katie asked.
‘Yes, but they’re at a distance. I have great friends near where I live but they’re all in couples; not that they mind me being the single amongst them, but I do. And I’ve only recently reconnected with Sara. I’m not sure that, with Jo, we could live together as you do with your friends.’
‘But you’ve been wondering about it?’
‘Yes and no. We get on, but it’s pretty clear we’d drive each other mad if it were a permanent arrangement. We all have our own ways of doing things.’
‘That’s exactly why my friends and I opted for close but independent housing. It’s important to have one’s own space as you get older.’
‘True, but I also want company. That’s why I asked about how you all felt at night.’
‘Of course, that’s when you feel it the most. I’d drop the idea of sharing a house, just as we did. Besides the need for independence, etc., there would be the questions of – for instance – are you going to have one big communal kitchen, shared bathrooms, TV – and if so, who has the remote? No, in the end, we realized it wasn’t going to work if we lived in the same house, which is why we came up with the arrangement as it is now. We’re within five minutes of each other. We all live the way we want to, decorate the way we want to but, if we want company, we’re there, and as I said when you came to meet everyone, at night we’re only a telephone call away.’
‘Sounds perfect. I might look into that if the others are open to it.’
‘Something else you may need to consider, Ally, is that – as you get older – you’ll find that although in one sense you might feel that you need people more, you also have to do a lot of letting go and learn not to need. You won’t survive otherwise.’
‘Why?’
Katie sighed. ‘Because things shift and change all the time. It’s true that friendships are precious but, in order to be happy, you must learn to let go, have no expectations and to become self-sufficient. Your friendship circle will reduce, not through fallings out or any wish to lose them or be alone, but circumstances change. Some people leave the party altogether …’
‘You mean die?’
Katie nodded. ‘Harsh fact of life. You will lose friends, people you have relied on, especially as you get older. I know, you’ve just lost Michael. It’s tough. Some friends will also pass, others will disappear into a renewed family when their children have grandchildren and suddenly that takes all their time and energy. They have their own family bubble. You will be happier if you can learn not to need anyone and curiously, in doing so, people will be more attracted to you.’
‘How am I supposed to do that?’
‘Meditate, fill your house with books so that in every room there are unwrapped gifts to be opened, do classes, keep learning so that you may occupy your time if friendships do change. Learn to like your own company. How many of you are there in your group of single women?’
‘Three, four – no, three. There were four of us, but Mitch, the fourth of our group, disappeared when we were in our twenties. We’ve just discovered that she’s in South Africa and are hoping to speak to her on Skype or FaceTime, if not today, then in the next few days. We also discovered that she had a daughter when she was nineteen or twenty. I never knew about that, nor did Jo or Sara. Her daughter’s been looking for her.’
‘Sounds exciting. Have you told her daughter yet?’
‘We have, as soon as we discovered where Mitch was. She wants to come out to South Africa with us to meet her
